I have been reading Pride and Prejudice again, or rather, having it read to me while I shelve or work on the check-in machine at my library. It is one of my favorite books ever, so it is no surprise I find it clever. One might even say that the very word "clever" could best be expressed by Pride and Prejudice.
Sure it would have been nice if clerkmanifesto were the perfect expression of "clever", but no. Maybe I can be an alternate. Like, if someone is curious as to what exactly "clever" means then they read all 130,000 words of Pride and Prejudice. And if they scratch their head at the end of that and say "Damn, almost there!" That's when clerkmanifesto could step in.
With stuff like this.
The other thing Pride and Prejudice excels at is appalling and irritating characters. I am early on in the book and weathered some early exposure to Elizabeth's mother and her younger sisters. Then I hit Miss Bingley.
Wow. I don't like her at all! I forgot how horrible she is. "This has to be the worst person in the book!" I exclaimed to myself.
Exclaiming to myself may not sound like much, but I find in my imagination I am a very large audience.
But then Elizabeth's mother dropped by when Jane was sick and was so breathtakingly obnoxious that I felt a bit hasty. And we haven't even met Mr. Collins! I'm not sure appalling people are particularly my thing when it comes to novels, but there it is in Pride and Prejudice, liberally seasoned right in with the cleverness, like they're salt and pepper.
It works. I mean, it all definitely works. But if someone wants to try out a great novel with all lovely, clever people, I'm ready.
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